i expected them to return my phone calls and emails.
actually when i opened my school i thought all decent kite schools were iko affiliated and a few years ago alot were. i probably shouldnt be surprised there are so few left.
i had a problem with an examiner running an instructor course at my club. iko refused to talk to me about it. they finally got their training manager david dorn to call me after i posted what happened on kite forum. they eventually fired the examiner but i never got an apology. now i would rather get my fees refunded.

loco4viento wrote:Hi Mike,

What kind of value did you expect for your money? Were you thinking the brand name IKO was going to give your place some credibility and increase your business volume? Did you consider simply setting up shop on your own without the brand name or some certification? Just curious what motivated you to send them money in the first place.

Who was the examiner?
Some were good, the currrent ones sent here are a joke. I've watched the candidates take their exam students and witnessed such a debarcle and think, he or she must have failed. A week later i see them teaching for a school. I mean it was amateur/ comedy hour BAD !!

WHEN will some strictly non profit org (yes pay them a salary) take the reins and take over make the teaching training what it could be/ should be.

Sounds like the schools know IKO is dead. It just needs the instructors to stop paying fees.

examiner was kamil from the chec republic. at first i was really pissed of with him but you know what, he showed me the light and now i dont send any more money to iko. thing i am most pissed of with now is the money i wasted on iko in the past.

turns out this examiner wanted to get me banned from running all the instructor courses so he could get all the students to do courses in vietnem at his mates school. he deliberatly screwed the whole course up and blamed me. finally iko checked with the students on the course and realised it was him that was the problem. iko seem to have no balls. they never offered me an apology for how badly they treated me. they lost 4 schools over this, which is a big deal when they have so few left.

are you still running itcs?

most of the instructors get anoyed with iko and quit within a year or 2. iko is a dying whore, just a matter of time.

doublerumandcoke wrote:Who was the examiner?
Some were good, the currrent ones sent here are a joke. I've watched the candidates take their exam students and witnessed such a debarcle and think, he or she must have failed. A week later i see them teaching for a school. I mean it was amateur/ comedy hour BAD !!

WHEN will some strictly non profit org (yes pay them a salary) take the reins and take over make the teaching training what it could be/ should be.

Sounds like the schools know IKO is dead. It just needs the instructors to stop paying fees.

For 50 bugs you get 2 years access to a pretty solid network of job-offers. I guess few are taking more than that from their memberships.

I considered leaving the IKO, but giving up the access to all those sweet teaching jobs (if I need one again) is not worth saving 4$ a month.

But I promise you as soon as there's a decent (non-profit) alternative I'll join.

Another point as owner of a kite-school. How do insurance-deals out there compare to the ones of the IKO? Do you find it easy to get insured? I'm not really keen to affiliate with IKO but I need to score a good insurance deal soon or I "have to"....

the_gmo wrote:Well, they got the instructors by the balls, haven't they?

For 50 bugs you get 2 years access to a pretty solid network of job-offers. I guess few are taking more than that from their memberships.

I considered leaving the IKO, but giving up the access to all those sweet teaching jobs (if I need one again) is not worth saving 4$ a month.

But I promise you as soon as there's a decent (non-profit) alternative I'll join.

Another point as owner of a kite-school. How do insurance-deals out there compare to the ones of the IKO? Do you find it easy to get insured? I'm not really keen to affiliate with IKO but I need to score a good insurance deal soon or I "have to"....

so i sent an email telling all the schools listed on the iko website that i was ripped off by iko. about a quarter of the emails were returned. looks like iko has listed a number of dummy schools to make it look like they have more schools than they actually do. pathetic.

kiwimike wrote:so i sent an email telling all the schools listed on the iko website that i was ripped off by iko. about a quarter of the emails were returned. looks like iko has listed a number of dummy schools to make it look like they have more schools than they actually do. pathetic.

Anything where you become an examiner by doing an online multiple choice test is obvisiously dodgy.
go BKSA much more professional and being a bksa school does actually mean you have proper trained instructors and all safety procedures and policies in place.
Now has recognised schools worldwide.http://www.britishkitesurfingassociation.co.uk/